By all accounts, it was a strikingly quick ascent. Influenced by the effects of a devalued ruble following the 1998 financial crisis, the recovery was initially driven organically by growth of domestic firms who benefited from import substitution. Subsequently, soaring commodity prices helped drive the economy to new heights.Article Controls

Some critics of Russia's public policies attributed its economic success to simple luck. However, a more sober and objective assessment would acknowledge that Russia's conservative fiscal policies had created fertile ground for sustainable growth.

Following the tumultuous 1990's, reforms such as the revision of the value-added-tax, introduction of a significantly lower and simpler 13% flat tax on personal income, and reductions in capital gains taxes encouraged entrepreneurship and drove government revenues to all-time highs.

The success of these policies allowed the Russian government to extinguish its Paris Club debt, create a rainy day fund, and build-up the third highest foreign currency reserves behind only China and Japan. By establishing a strong economic foundation, Russia has been able to weather the current economic storm.

With the recent rebound in oil prices, some in Russia have actually lamented the potential brevity of the recession; hypothesizing that a longer, deeper and more painful contraction would be necessary for substantive structural change.

A reasonable, flat individual tax and capital gains tax advantages helped the economy and increased revenues? Who could have predicted that?Comment On This Story

But diversification is essential to Russia's future as a prospering economy. And in order to diversify, Russia will need to tap its other natural resource -- technology.

To compete for global investment capital and sustain its economic development, Russia will need to continuously improve its investment environment and promote its achievements, especially in the areas of infrastructure, legal reform, reduction of pervasive corruption, shareholder rights, education and support for R&D. Two examples of progress: the Russian government recently reduced its corporate tax rate from 24% to 20%; and established landmark legislation on insider trading -- a vitally important step toward full-fledged financial transparency and market legitimacy.

Now, Russia needs to diversify, and the cornerstone should be a historically powerful asset -- its creative technological minds.

Russia is famous for producing highly educated, world-class engineers and scientists. However, during the Soviet regime, the other ingredients necessary to enable the emergence of an entrepreneurial culture in the private sector were repressed. Nevertheless, technological innovation was consistently promoted in state research institutes and universities.Dugg on Forbes.com

Specifically, scientists were encouraged to spend a certain percentage of their time pursuing unique projects in non-core areas of study. This was out-of-the-box thinking at its most basic, and – most productive. Ironically, or maybe not, these techniques are presently being used to maintain the innovative culture in companies such as Google ( GOOG - news - people ).

It is time for Russia to bring this mindset full circle.

During the 1990's, many Russians with technical educational backgrounds left science and technology for traditional industries – where they could more easily earn a living and establish their careers. In fact, many of the country's oligarchs brought their engineering and mathematical skills to the business world and created some of Russia's largest industrial companies. However, in recent years, this trend has shown signs of reversing.

Catalyzed in part by increasing competition in non-technology sectors of the economy, a new generation of market-oriented entrepreneurs and managers with deep technical training is entering the high-tech industry in pursuit of its objectively higher profit margins. They are inspired by startup pioneers, like Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, Max Levchin of PayPal, and Serguei Beloussov, co-founder of Parallels and Acronis, who have shown that it is possible to generate faster and better returns in technology markets.

Many in this new generation of tech entrepreneurs gained experience in product development and management while working for leading western companies based in Russia, such as Adobe ( ADBE - news - people ), Cisco ( CSCO - news - people ), HP, Intel ( INTC - news - people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). Others are returning expats, who left to complete their education in U.S. or European graduate programs and business schools, and now see a growing opportunity at home.

Today, Russian entrepreneurs start software and Internet services companies in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk as easily as any MBA in Silicon Valley. Several start-ups have accessed the Internet for initial sales, expanded outside Russia's borders while utilizing foreign managerial talent, and subsequently built companies with over $100 million in revenue. Many early stage companies are poised to achieve similar growth. However, the development of a middle manager class is essential -- a challenge currently being addressed by emerging Russian business schools.

Together, these factors are contributing to the emergence of technology entrepreneurship in Russia. But to effectively diversify the economy, these sparks of innovation must be encouraged and nurtured. As Potemkin readily knew, one wall does not a house make. So for Russia, the current global financial crisis presents an opportunity -- one that must not be lost -- to achieve true structural change through its othernatural resource -- technology.

MOSCOW, October 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia will channel 318 billion rubles ($10.6 billion) into development of nanotechnology by 2015, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday.

"By 2015, 318 billion rubles will be channeled for this purpose," Medvedev said at the opening of an international nanotechnology forum in Moscow.

He said Russia was facing the "immodest" task of becoming a global nanotechnology leader, using and adapting foreign experience for the domestic market and attracting investors. He added that sales of Russian nanotechnology products could reach 900 billion rubles ($30 billion) by 2015.

"We want to lead the process, and we have the intellectual potential, the organizational skills and the finance," the president said.

"I hope we will be able to make nanotechnology, the nano industry, one of the most powerful sectors of the Russian economy," Medvedev said.

In 2007, Russia established the state-run Nanotechnology Corporation, which takes a longer-term view in selecting promising Russian and international projects for investment.

However, Medvedev said, the lack of personnel could hamper Russia's nanotechnology drive.

"According to experts, our country will need a serious number of 100,000-150,000 [nanotechnology] personnel. The lack of workers remains a very serious obstacle to developing nanotechnology in earnest in Russia," he acknowledged.

The president also said Russia could involve its compatriots abroad in nanotechnology projects.

Russia has the potential to become on of the most innovative countries with technologies that match or are completely different then western made. Problem is that there are currently no large companies like General electric (Russian counterpart) in Russia and or other major companies willing to create new technologies. What would also help, is if companies arise in the country that helps R&D, develop and create new devices to help production of high tech components and alike.

Russia could always start larger build up of Polytechnic schools all over the country, and provide impressive education as well as business opportunities to younger people and foreigners to come to the country and help it progress.

Instead of worrying about its neighbors and what they do, they should focus on countries that are willing to do massive technological trade and business, and preparation of their country for greatness. Face it, even if the country was surrounded by enemies at its borders, does not mean anyone will attack, nor will it mean they become weak.

Russia could become one of the richest and most powerful countries in the world. But as long as everything is state run, infrastructure is not dealt with, business harder to be created due to lack in free trade and violent issues regarding the North Caucus; Russia will not progress that fast.

President Dmitry Medvedev on Dec. 31 signed a decree to form a working group for the creation of an innovation center modeled on Silicon Valley.

According to Vladislav Surkov, deputy head of the presidential administration and Medvedev's own deputy in the modernization committee, the project is the brainchild of Medvedev himself.

However, the project was only revealed last Thursday at a meeting of the modernization committee.

The project will be implemented in two phases, Surkov explained. First, starting from spring, major companies will "grow" in clusters their own innovative products, which have been preselected by the commission. Then the most promising products will be taken away and "transplanted" into the "valley," which will start working from the end of the year, probably in the Moscow region. Applications are being accepted from major companies only. The criteria for choosing a project should be its scale.

Projects are accepted only within the five areas of modernization that are being focused on by the presidential commission: energy efficiency and energy saving, nuclear technology, space technology, medical technology, and strategic information technology.

Foreigners would be welcome in the center, Surkov said. "In addition, a qualified foreign investor would mean that we could go on the market in other countries," a member of the working group added.

The Moscow Times

I know this is a little bit old news, but was hoping to make a sticky about this thread or something. To continue the update of the project.

At the same time that sprang up in California, Apple, Andrew Storch had the opportunity to become closely acquainted with the Russian high-tech sector: he was entrusted with protecting the fence enclosing the outside world scientists working in the Sverdlovsk-45, one of the secret Soviet science cities in the Urals. Such towns were surrounded by fences to protect it from spyware, but actually a fence separated the scientists from the rest of the population. At a time when the Soviet Union, many starved, science cities are islands of prosperity and wealth: The local store shelves could be seen imported products and rare items. Treatment of these towns was so strict that even the children wore clothes pins with the names. To invite people to visit relatives, was required for several months to apply for permission. "It was a prison, in all respects a closed city" - recalls Storch, while a young soldier. Today he is involved in a questionable new enterprise: the Russian government, hoping to diversify its economy, now dependent on oil exports for the first time since the collapse of the USSR decided to build a new Science City. Even more skeptical look at the prospect of the project makes is that, according to the officials of the sample taken the American Silicon Valley. Russia - not the first country that tries to copy the idea of Silicon Valley. For example, the task to reproduce the climate of the southern part of the territory adjacent to the San Francisco Bay, was staged in Malaysia, which in the clear in the jungle area was built by the city Kiberdzhayya. In China, near Beijing, established high-tech city of Tianjin, and in France - Sophia Antipolis, near Nice. All these cities were built with government support, and all eventually succeed in attracting private business. Future Russian Science City has not yet been named. It will be built in Moscow, and his task will be carried forward to the Russian soil the spirit of creativity and entrepreneurship that are the basis of American technological power. It is equally undeniable that Russia has a rich scientific tradition, and that she never managed to succeed in translating ideas into commercial products. These circumstances are reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union and paralyzing dependence on oil and mining industries. In this regard, it is not surprising that the leadership of the country look with envy at the Silicon Valley. "Russia needs a new breakthrough - said Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oligarch, appointed co-director of the project. - Translating research project the city can play a role of a launching pad for the country as a whole. He describes the future city "a test model of business development", aimed to revive Russian science in the era of capitalism. Created in the new center will enjoy high-end production by generous tax holidays and government grants as long until the start make a profit. Supporters of the project in public and private sector characterize it as an attempt to unite the Soviet tradition of building cities with western scientific models to encourage the development of research companies around universities. Skeptics also point to the manifestation of another Russian tradition: an attempt to catch up with the West again performed in the hope mainly on the magic power of the state. "Mechanisms to the success of Silicon Valley, here involved would not - said Evgeny Zaytsev, a co-founder, based in Palo Alto, California venture capital firm Helix Ventures and board member of Association of Russian entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley itself, AmBar. - The project foresees the participation of the State in Russia would not otherwise exist. " The idea of a new city was born in the bowels of the Kremlin bureaucracy, the so-called Commission for modernization. However, the overall attitude of the Russian government with entrepreneurs and scientists should be characterized as a conflict. There has been a long and prosperous tradition of state "raids" on private business with arbitrarily applicable tax laws. A place for cherished Russian Silicon Valley has been selected near another ambitious project, a business school in Skolkovo, situated in a building futuristic architecture, built on the big donations the Russian oligarchs, including Mr Vekselberg. Similar ideas circulating in Russia for years, but this project was approved, as well as financial support in the form of a $ 200 million from the state budget - a month after the January visit to MIT by a group of senior Kremlin officials that included the influential head of the presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov. Areas of scientific activity, which will get preference in the new town, established by President Dmitry Medvedev. This communication, biomedicine, space exploration, nuclear energy and energy efficiency, and is expected to particularly productive projects can be raised at the junction of these directions. Officials have expressed confidence that Russia will soon again become a power, known for its talent, not mines and oil wells. However, entrepreneurs with experience in Russia, are skeptical. The founder of Kaspersky Lab Evgeny Kaspersky said that it wants to project success, but advises authorities to limit their role to tax incentives and the provision of infrastructure. "In Russia, a lot of talented software developers, but not so many successful businessmen - he says. - And in the minds of people still iron curtain. Andrew Kramer, "New Newspaper" April 16, 2010

It is good that they are planning something, but what I think that the government needs to only get involved in funding and overseeing development in some respects, but allow it to be private, or it may not work. Incentives are sounding good (tax breaks, don't need to pay energy for so much amount of years, etc), but the government would need to get the FSB or any other government organization, their hands out of the cookie jar.

I like the idea because it sets in concrete a government commitment to support Russian R&D in specific areas.It is also recognition that private enterprise needs to drive development.

There are comments above about how wonderful the Americans are but the reality is that a lot of innovation and brains goes there because that is where the money is.

People from all round the world come up with good ideas all the time, but the US is on the look out for that sort of stuff and lures the developers with development money and facilities.

An Australian company have developed a way of enriching uranium using lasers which is much faster, much easier and much smaller and harder for the US to detect (though the latter wasn't the goal of course).The US bought everything up and took over the project and now those Aussies are working in America to perfect the technology... and when it is perfected... it will be American technology.

I hope such a centre creates a demand for computers and that demand creates a components industry in Russia so they can make their own computers and parts for other uses.

GarryB wrote:I like the idea because it sets in concrete a government commitment to support Russian R&D in specific areas.It is also recognition that private enterprise needs to drive development.

There are comments above about how wonderful the Americans are but the reality is that a lot of innovation and brains goes there because that is where the money is.

People from all round the world come up with good ideas all the time, but the US is on the look out for that sort of stuff and lures the developers with development money and facilities.

An Australian company have developed a way of enriching uranium using lasers which is much faster, much easier and much smaller and harder for the US to detect (though the latter wasn't the goal of course).The US bought everything up and took over the project and now those Aussies are working in America to perfect the technology... and when it is perfected... it will be American technology.

I hope such a centre creates a demand for computers and that demand creates a components industry in Russia so they can make their own computers and parts for other uses.

More like, this will just encourage development that revolves on the current computer equipment, with maybe development of their own semiconductor companies.

The Taiwanese hi-tech company Foxconn has opened a Hewlett-Packard personal computers production center near St. Petersburg, the city's Committee for Economic Development, Industrial Policy and Trade news statement said on Monday.The plant was due to be opened in 2009, but Foxconn had problems with contractors.During the first step of the project, Foxconn is planning to invest some $50 million in the plant with a monthly capacity of up to 40,000 computers.Initially, the plant will produce personal computers and further expand the product line.According to the IDC market research company, Hewlett-Packard is the leading company for printing equipment in Russia with 38% of the market, far ahead its rivals Canon (23%) and Samsung (15%).SAINT PETERSBURG, April 26 (RIA Novosti)

RIAN

Foxconn has come a long way. Back in the day, Foxconn was simply the board manufacturing for cheap motherboards that had nothing really to it that would make it different to Intel boards (except for cheaper parts and it being cheaper all together). Now they make video cards and I guess boards for HP, with lots of overclocking potential and with higher quality parts. Impressive to say the least, and this is good in helping create jobs in Russia.

President Dmitry Medvedev is pledging unprecendented privileges for companies joining the International Innovation Centre in Skolkovo, adding that corruption will be stamped on.

Russia’s making moves to develop a hi-tech economy. At a meeting on modernization, Medvedev offered big incentives for innovative firms to join a new hub.

“Tax breaks are a key issue for business. Skolkovo residents will pay no profit tax, VAT or property tax for ten years.”

The Russian government will fund the lion’s share of the site, including housing for 30,000 residents. But the track record isn’t good – with previous efforts ending in failure. Dmitry Medvedev admits the billions of dollars thrown at hi-tech so far have not produced a single world-class product. So this time they’re being more careful.

Only the most promising proposals will be bankrolled, Russia’s Finance Minister told this channel. In charge of the project will be Victor Vekselberg, a successful businessman rather than a bureaucrat. He pledged Skolkovo will avoid the kickbacks common in state projects.

“Corruption is a big problem for Russia, but I believe Skolkovo will be able to escape from that environment.”

Medvedev’s colleagues say he’s set on making Skolkovo work. The President himself is helping to draw up the bill creating the project, which goes to parliament next month.

RT.com

In a sense, the most promising and profiting industries are the software development, pharmaceutical and space based equipment. Manufacturing equipment is another that can be very profiting.

World recognition Skolkovskoye projectRussia has an opportunity to bring to the work of leading scientific power2010-04-30 / Dmitry Sergeev

Recently, one of the supervisors in innograda Skolkovo became Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Roger Kornberg David. American responded to the invitation of the other winners of the prestigious award - Jaures Alferov, who is supervisor of the project with the Russian side.

Certainly, the involvement of the Nobel Laureate Roger Kornberg David set a precedent, and Skolkovo in the near future be able to attract other scientists of world renown. Moreover, the debate about the future of Russian industrial park is actively in the leading scientific centers abroad.

During his recent visit to Denmark, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has invited prominent foreign scientists to work in the Moscow Skolkovo.

"If we talk about the new economy of high technologies, and this, as I said, our country is now the number one priority, we would welcome the participation of Danish partners in the formation of a new innovation center in Skolkovo. I do not want to use the comparison. This, of course, Silicon Valley, but in any case, we have the desire to create such a major innovation park, where we invite all the foreign partners and, of course, our Danish friends, "- said the Russian head of state.

Invitation to a key role in the project Nobel laureate David Kornberg, one of the recognized authorities in the world's scientific elite was certainly a precedent and a symbol of what Skolkovo - this is an "open city" (in the broadest sense). A graduate of Harvard, one of the leading professors at Stanford University, a member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Kornberg truly unique specialist. The son of Nobel Prize winner in 1959, recognized authority in the field of biochemistry of enzymes, their prize David Kornberg has received a research method copy (transcription) cells of hereditary information. And got his Nobel individually and not with the team of scientists that says a lot about the outstanding qualities of the new academic advisor Skolkov.

"Participation Kornberg in the project - this is the first but very important step in attracting outstanding foreign scientists to participate in our project ... Skolkovo - is an open project, it has a clear mission - to create an innovative environment, but it is very flexible strategy that will determine not officials, and enlisted to participate in the project outstanding scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs. I think that the opinion of Mr. Kornberg will largely determine the strategic line of development of the project "- commented the first deputy head of presidential administration, Vladislav Surkov, Kornberg agreed to work in Russia.

According to Surkov, "Kornberg studies are at the interface of chemistry, genetics, biology, and therefore offer Alferov invited to work in the project Kornberg is logical, since one of the directions of modernization of the Russian economy, identified by the President of Russia, is the development of biomedical technologies. As pointed out by Academician Vladimir Gvozdev, Institute of Molecular Genetics, "Kornberg works are of great importance for the global science and practice of medicine ... To start or stop the action of the gene, it is necessary to influence the nucleosome. Kornberg has created these mechanisms, raising biochemistry to engineering level. That is, he walked away from "pure science" in the applications of laboratory findings.Also see:New application NG-Commonwealth ". From the editor.Common humanitarian space - our common interestExecutive Director IFESCCO Armen Smbatian main task considers the establishment of trust between the countries of the CommonwealthWe won together!In Moscow, the international conference "The victory over fascism in 1945: its significance for the peoples of CIS and the world""Victory Day" Soviet musicThe famous song by David Tukhmanov rescued Leo Leshchenko

This is particularly important in view of the fact that the priority Innovation Centre Skolkovo - that bring research scientists to specific economic products. Here you will experience the way Kornberg, whose extensive ties to Stanford University, around which at one time, the so-called Silicon Valley, famous for its works.

"Competent leadership scholars of world renown is a prerequisite for the success of the project ... Science in this century is closely linked with the economy, with major organizational challenges. If the supervisor is not high name, to solve problems will be difficult "- confirms the Vice-President of RAS, Director of the Physics Institute, Gennady Mesyats.

Until Kornberg in our country has worked only one Nobel Prize winner - American Hermann Muller. Now Russia has an opportunity to draw far greater numbers of scientists with the name. Fortunately, they participate in the work Skolkovo already seems interesting. In particular, the observations of the Month, prospects Skolkovskoye project actively interested scientists engaged in research at CERN, which is under way work on the Large Hadron Collider. It is possible that this interest, as is the case with Kornberg, will also receive a concrete shape.

But not only recognized luminaries interest in the project. Many young scientists are looking at Skolkov. In one of the world's most popular social network Facebook emerged several sites devoted to discussion of the prospects for near Moscow innograda. Among the groups of graduate students the most prestigious universities: Columbia, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Upsole (Sweden), the Sorbonne, and many others.

Evidence of increased interest in Skolkov abroad and are published in prestigious scientific journals. Thus, the magazine of the University of Massachusetts Technology Review quotes a professor of investment banking at Harvard Business School Josh Lerner, commended the work on creating innograda in Skolkovo: "In Russia there is no shortage of smart" techie "with a really strong technological ideas, and this is a plus." With regard to the arguments of skeptics, then, as noted by Lerner, "Remember how in 1991 was no doubt about the creation of Israel Venture Capital and Innovation cluster. The skeptics were wrong. And in this case should not be too dismissive.

Also, the publication noted that the reasons are for our country to create world-class industrial park more than serious: "Russia has lost a lot of scientists and engineers in the 90's. The Russian economy is heavily dependent on exports of natural gas and other resources ... The overall objective of the project Skolkovo - commercialization of technologies generated in the energy, biomedicine, IT, telecommunications, and in the nuclear industry to diversify as a result of Russia's economy, saving her from petroleum dependence. "

To date, we can state: the project of Technopark in Skolkovo provoked a very positive reaction to the foreign academic, scientific and research circles. Russia has clearly an opportunity to bring to work in the new project leading scientific power. Will it be able to seize the chance, will show very soon.

The former head of Intel's Craig Barrett became co-chairman of the Supervisory Board on the management companies, is implementing the Innovation Centre in Skolkovo. This was stated on April 29 President Dmitry Medvedev at a meeting of the Commission on modernization and technological development of economy.

Another famous person who is logged in project management create the Innovation Center in Skolkovo - Nobel laureate Roger Kornberg. He became co-Jaures Alferov of the Scientific Board.

"These are the people and the sign should appear, they will improve international interest in the project", - said Dmitry Medvedev.

Talking about the innovation center in Skolkovo, the President stressed that it should from the outset to be absolutely competitive. Head of State pointed to the early development of the special legal, administrative, tax and customs regime of functioning of the territory.

As the press service of the president, Dmitry Medvedev, indicated the need for the development of nuclear medicine, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Over the past 10 years Russia cancer rate has increased by 16 percent, the mortality rate from him - a 14 per cent, cancer in Russia is a major cause of mortality.

During the meeting, Dmitry Medvedev announced the launch of the website of the Commission on modernization and technological development of Russia's economy - www.i-russia.ru.

Sadly the real problem with the Soviet system was the extreme secrecy.

There is of course some need for secrecy, but keeping secrets is expensive to implement and it also stunts development because it results in compartmentalisation.

What I mean by that is that unless someone high up realises it that different groups working on different programs will not share information so a company making the SA-6 missile with its combined rocket and ramjet propulsion system might not be in contact with the company that makes the Kh-31 anti radiation and anti ship missile that uses exactly the same shape and propulsion method.

In other words both companies will be trying to solve a lot of the same problems with materials and design and engine types separately, whereas if they were working in a more open environment or if the system was much better managed then they could work on the problems together where the problems were the same or very similar and share the costs and testing and pool intellectual resources with the likely result of a cheaper but also better result.

One of the best examples of one technology development stream that effects other technology development streams is the development of affordable super computers.Most large manufacturers in Russia have not had access to super computers, so design and testing is largely with prototypes and scale models, which is slow and expensive and in many ways a hit and miss method of design and rapid prototyping.

To be able to use a computer model and test thousands of designs... even silly impractical designs leads to progress and is much faster and cheaper.

Most designs are conservative... The PAK FA has a clear Su-27 look about it, and lets face it the F-22 looks like an F-15 with stealth features applied... and the F-15 looks like a Mig-25 anyway.

Currently the Russian military is ordering cross service systems in a way that few other militaries do. Ka-52s for Army and Navy, SAMs for Army and Navy and Air Force and Space and Air Defence Forces, Su-34s for Navy and Air Force, even a unification of 30mm cannon ammo (ie 30 x 165mm) and the new development of unified 152mm guns between Navy and Army are all steps to save development money and reduce the production of multiple types of things doing the same job.That is not to say they are being anal about standardisation...they currently operate small arms in a range of calibres including 9 x 18mm, 9 x 19mm, 5.45 x 39mm, 7.62 x 39mm, 9 x 39mm, 7.62 x 54mm, 12.7 x 108mm, 14.5 x 114mm, and soon to perhaps add 8.6 x 70mm (.338 Lapua Magnum) and that is not including exotic calibres like the 5.66mm underwater rifle and the separate different calibred underwater pistol calibre too.

The 7.62 x 39mm is still widely used in older rifles, and the 9 x 18mm are used in Makarov pistols and Kedr SMGs that are still in service.

Computerworld - T-Platforms, a Moscow-based tech company that has built some of that nation's largest systems, is developing a 10-petaflop supercomputer for M.V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, the company said this week.

This large system puts it in the ballpark of similarly announced systems being developed in the major supercomputing countries, and may signal Russia's intent to become a major participant in the race to exascale.

Russia is playing catch-up in a rapidly developing race among China, Japan, the U.S. and Europe to build an exascale system in this decade. These are systems which would have 1,000 petaflops of computing power. (A petaflop is a quadrillion floating-point operations per second.)

Building an exascale system will require new approaches in microprocessors, interconnects, memory and storage. If breakthroughs happen outside the U.S., it could seed development of companies that could challenge the U.S. dominance in tech.

Russia "is committed to having exascale computation capabilities by 2018-2020 and is prepared to make the investments to make that happen," said Mike Bernhardt, who writes The Exascale Report and who was asked to respond to a Computerworld query by T-Platforms. More details about the Russian exascale effort will come out in the next year, he said.

T-Platforms is establishing itself as the leading HPC maker in Russia, and is also gaining customers outside of Russia, particularly in Europe. It has previously built a 1.3 petaflop system at Lomonosov.

The latest system at Lomonosov will be water-cooled and is expected to be operational by the end of 2013. It will use Intel and Nvidia chips, and possibly Intel's MIC chip if it is available for design efforts in 2012, the company said.

The view from Russia is very similar to that of Europe. All these nations would like to be less dependent on U.S. technology to build high performance systems.

"At this point, there is unity in believing any company, on a global scale, would be foolish to state that they know the exact technology or components they will use to build an exascale machine," said Bernhardt, in an email. "Systems will be hybrid, heterogeneous and unique. And there are too many unknowns and too many paths being explored at this time to pick the winners from these many options."

"You can expect to see Russia holding its own in the exascale race with little or no dependence on foreign manufacturers," said Bernhardt.

For now, the world is dependent on the U.S. IBM today has nearly 45% share of the systems on the Top 500 list of the world's largest systems; Hewlett-Packard has 28%, and Cray, 5.4%.

Europe is already exploring alternative technologies, including use of ARM processors by the UK-based company ARM Holdings.

"Exascale computing is a challenge, and indeed an opportunity for Europe to become a global HPC leader," said Leonardo Flores Anover, who is the European Commission's project officer for the European Exascale Software Initiative, in an email response to a query. "This can only be achieved if there is a real European policy with the EU member states."

"The EU effort is intended to support excellence in the European supply and use of HPC in all domains (for industry, science and society) that are strategic for us," said Anover. "In particular on the supply side, the goal is to foster the development of a European industrial capability," he said.

China has developed its own interconnects and processors, which it is now using in some of its HPC systems.

There are multiple efforts underway in the U.S. to develop architecture and technologies for exascale platforms. But funding for a multi-year project, which will likely cost billions of dollars is, for now, hinging on a report from the U.S. Department of Energy to Congress by Feb. 10.

This DOE report is expected to outline the reasons for an exascale initiative in the U.S., the international efforts, and the cost of achieving exascale.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at Twitter@DCgov, or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed Thibodeau RSS. His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

The problem with computing is the exponential increase in performance is very hard to get your head around.

Stalin once said roughly that 5 dead is a tragedy, 3 million dead is a statistic.

Basically humans have trouble comprehending really big numbers.

To explain to children about computer terms I find a good way is to use different units as examples.

The terms kilo, mega, giga, peta, exa are prefixes that multiply the units they are attached to. If you read about radar and radio waves then you might be familiar with the terms kilohertz, megahertz, and gigahertz. The unit is hertz, so a kilohertz is 1000 x 1 Hertz, a megahertz is 1000 x 1000 x 1 Hertz... etc etc.

When talking about weight or distance because these numbers get really big really quickly we are familiar with grammes and metres, and also kilogrammes and kilometres, but megagrammes and megametres are such large distances we are not familiar with the terms as they are not needed in normal everyday life.

Common units used in computers include measurements of clock speed (in hertz)... so a quad core 3.2 GHz CPU, memory capacity in bytes (GB or Gigabytes is common for RAM, while for Hard Drives they are into Terabytes already)

(note the 1Exx is scientific notation where 1E3 means 1 followed by 3 zeros.

Each prefix is 1,000 times bigger than the one below it, so when the article above talks about the race to get to an exaflops speed super computer the chart above gives you an idea of what they are talking about. BTW a FLOP is a floating point operation.

It indicates the speed at which the CPUs can perform mathematic calculations.

As I said the bigger numbers are difficult to put in perspective... I used to use time to show the increase from one to the other and it is pretty easy to do with a calculator.

Instead of kilobytes kb, megabytes mb, gigabytes gb... etc etc I substitute seconds. ( a byte is a single character, it could be the letter a, or A or a space, or the number 3, or a comma or &)It is hard to comprehend 1,000 characters let alone a billion, so instead of bytes I use seconds.

1 second is easy to understand.1 kilosecond is 1,000 seconds or just over 16 minutes worth of seconds.1 megasecond is 1,000 kiloseconds or just over 11 and a half days worth of seconds.1 gigasecond is 1,000 megaseconds or just over 31 and a half years worth of seconds.1 terasecond is 1,000 gigaseconds or just over 31,500 years worth of seconds.1 petasecond is 1,000 teraseconds... 31.5 million years worth of seconds.1 exa second is 1,000 petaseconds... 31.5 billion years worth of seconds.

1 Exa second is over twice the believed age of the universe... which is something like 13-14 billion years!!!!

Belarus is prepared to station on its territory and co-finance enterprises working for the Russian Skolkovo innovative project, Belarusian Prime Minister Mikhail Miasnikovich has declared.

“I believe there can be much more than one scientific and technological centre like Skolkovo. We propose to station some of its branches in Belarus,” Miasnikovich said speaking at a business forum of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan which is currently being held in St. Petersburg.

He stressed that he completely shared Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s opinion that “Skolkovo is not a territory but an ideology”.

Russia`s Geonod company based in the Skolkovo innovation center outside Moscow have unveiled a technology of marine bottom prospecting seismology for hydrocarbons.

One of the company`s co-chairmen, Yevgeny Borisov, told the ITAR-TASS news agency that the recently invented method is currently the most economically and technically efficient when it comes to prospecting for hydrocarbons at the depth from 0 to 7,000 meters.

The Geonod Prospecting-600 set of geophysical devices ensures the collection of data even in the most remote areas.

A space satellite manufacturing plant will be built in the town of Shchyolkovo, just outside the Russian capital, Moscow Region Governor Sergei Shoigu said on Wednesday.“It will be a new production facility,” he said, adding that a research hub will also be created there.The plant will build about six communication and observation satellites a year, Shoigu said.It will provide about 1,000 jobs and will be “environmentally clean,” the governor added.He offered no timeline for the construction but said a land plot for the site was to be provided before December 15.